At its meeting on October 25, 2023, Toronto’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee will consider a report titled Congestion Management Plan 2023-2026. With a familiar refrain, the report begins:
The City is facing an unprecedented amount of construction road closures creating congestion issues for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians and surface street transit. There has also been a significant demand for special events in the City post-pandemic with the needs for road closures and more comprehensive traffic management strategies to minimize the impacts. This situation emphasizes the demand for better coordination of access to the right-of-way and the need for improved traffic management overall to help mitigate the impacts of congestion while maintaining safety for all road users.
[Congestion Management Plan 2023-26 at p. 1]
It goes on to talk about “refocusing” on four key areas:
[Congestion Management Plan 2023-26 at pp 1-2]
- Leveraging Technology to Better Coordinate Construction on City Streets and expanding the Construction Hub program
- Establishing a dedicated traffic management team that will work with stakeholders such as Toronto Police Services, Toronto Parking Authority, TTC, Metrolinx GO, the Office of Emergency Management and City Councillors to improve traffic management planning efforts around major events while also coordinating with ongoing construction
- Providing increased traffic management support for surface street transit for both TTC and Metrolinx GO to help mitigate the impacts of construction related route diversions
- Investigating Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology to better optimize traffic signal operations to help all modes move more efficiently and safely with less delay around the City.
This appears modestly promising but for the fact we have heard many proposals before and, if anything, congestion becomes worse. If this is a “refocus”, one might ask what the City has been doing for the decade since the first Congestion Management Plan was adopted in 2013. In turn, that goes back to an October 2011 motion by Councillor Josh Matlow asking for “a report on the cost and feasibility of implementing a Synchronized Traffic Signal System”.
Looking back at years of reports, there is a common theme that changes are possible at the small scale with improvements of up to 10% in traffic flow at specific times and locations. However, these are one time effects in the sense that the improvement, once achieved, cannot repeated to cope with traffic growth.
Moreover, there is a finite capacity in the road system, and the major political challenge is to apportion this capacity among competing demands. Motor traffic, as the dominant use, inevitably must give up part of its share to give better service and space to others. This was a fundamental choice needed in the King Street Transit Priority Pilot scheme, and even there, the assumption was that some traffic could shift from King to parallel corridors.
[Full disclosure: I was a paid consultant on a project in 2014-15 to review the major east-west streetcar lines with a view to modifying traffic and parking rules to improve transit operations in the peak and shoulder-peak periods.]
Although Transit Priority is one topic in the report, there is no mention of the RapidTO program which appears to be stalled after the initial implementation in Scarborough on Eglinton-Kingston-Morningside. I am not counting the red lanes for the 903 Scarborough Express bus replacing the SRT as they came from a force majeure situation and would not otherwise have been implemented. Any of the RapidTO proposals will involve substantial change in allocation of road capacity, and they have not been well received in some quarters.
A related question is whether dedicated lanes can be justified in areas where TTC service is not as frequent as it once was on King Street, especially on a fully dedicated 7×24 basis.
In March 2020, the Covid lockdowns made a lot of traffic vanish, although as reported both here and elsewhere, traffic is now above pre-pandemic levels. This is particularly true in the suburbs where there are proportionately more jobs that are not suited to work-from-home arrangements, and where transit’s share of the travel market is hampered by service levels, route structure and trip distances.
The pandemic also triggered a move to accelerate construction projects both as a job creation program and to take advantage of the lower effect on traffic possible at the time. However, construction does not appear to have diminished, but the normal traffic level is back.
The basic problem of finite road capacity is made much more complex by the removal of significant chunks of that capacity for rapid transit construction, utility repairs, streetcar track maintenance (downtown), road and bridge maintenance, and curb lane occupancy permits for building construction. All of this might be “co-ordinated”, but the sheer number of affected locations and the duration of temporary capacity removal means that the road system is rarely at an optimal condition.
This also hampers schemes to reallocate capacity permanently for transit, cycling and pedestrians.
The current report includes only two recommendations:
- the reconfiguration and expansion of zones served by “construction hubs” which are supposed to provide co-ordination between all projects by various parties in different sections of the city, and
- expansion of the Traffic Agent Program (aka “Traffic Wardens”) by use of police officers and special constables.
Any other effects would come from continuation of work already approved or in progress, notably from the “Smart Signals” project which is already underway, but which is not yet fully funded.
Notable by its complete absence in this report is the recognition that some congestion cannot be easily “fixed”, and that active intervention in allocating road capacity will be necessary in the worst cases. That is dangerous political territory, especially in a City that has lived through both the Ford and Tory eras where transit did not rank first.
Moreover, there is a danger that a focus on “congestion” will reinforce the TTC’s typical behaviour of assigning all blame for poor service on external factors when their own scheduling and line management practices make a substantial contribution.
In the remainder of this article, I will review various aspects of the City’s plan and actions to date. This is mostly in the same order as sections of the report, with some consolidation to group related items.
Levering Technology to Improve Co-ordination
The report proposes an online reservation system for applicants to file applications for work plans and review what is already proposed. With over 40,000 applications annually, this would be an obvious requirement even without a congestion crisis. One must ask why this does not already exist in a city that has touted the need for co-ordination through past administrations.
This would feed into and simplify the review and approval process, but there is no mention of what might happen if there is a conflict where the City should simply say “no”, nor what the priority for types of applications might be. Some work is planned years in advance, and yet the reservation system is intended only to handle requests for 12 months in the future.
Another piece of what is now rather low tech is a proposal that signs at construction sites would include QR codes passersby could scan for a link to descriptions of the work underway. The more general problem is that this information should be consolidated and searchable online like the City’s database of planning applications and the TOInview map of planned infrastructure work. Keeping this info complete and up to date will be vital for it to be truly useful.
It appears that the City is headed in this direction, and they plan a launch in early 2024 of a new Road Restrictions website, online application tool and QR code signs at work zones.
In parallel with this effort, Transportation Services is also working on the development of a new Road Restriction web site that will feature more information about the work zone closures such as: 24/7 construction site contact information, details about the impacts to road, pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure as well as more clear representation of the limits of construction on the map.
[Congestion Management Plan 2023-26 at p. 4]
New & Expanded Construction Hubs
In 2019, the City piloted the Construction Hub concept as a mechanism to co-ordinate the use of City rights-of-way (roads and sidewalks) by various parties and fund, through fees, enhanced support services of “co-ordination, traffic management planning and communication”. By 2021, this had expanded to six hubs in various parts of the city.
The report proposes the expansion of some existing hubs (Downtown, East Harbour, Lakeshore West, and Yonge-Eglinton) and creation of three new ones (Six Points, Willowdale and Danforth).
Staffing would be expanded and restructured to provide added support at the ward level and respond to emerging congestion problems with actions such as modified signal timings.
Increased Support for Surface Transit: TTC and Metrolinx
The report details work in support of various TTC activities, but it boils down, mostly, to changes in signal timings in an attempt to optimize conditions for transit. This includes various signal timing changes for:
- Many intersections in support of the Queen service diversions around Ontario Line construction
- The 903 Scarborough Express operation
- Subway shuttles
- Streetcar track replacement projects
A shortfall in this activity has been that some changes were implemented after the fact, and they have not kept up with the shifting route diversions from many projects. It is telling that the list of changes for the Queen streetcar speaks of a diversion route which is no longer in use.
A more general problem for transit priority is that little attention is given to non-standard routes and diversions which tend to have more turns needing priority treatment. Just when priority is most critical because a route is disrupted, the traffic signal system does not aid and can often hinder transit operations. This type of support should be sitting in place for day-to-day use, not require advance planning and co-ordination except for major, long-running changes which themselves could create a legacy of infrastructure for future events.
I must observe in passing that an argument one hears is that motorists need predictability and cannot deal with intersections that behave differently from time to time. This is nonsense. They are perfectly capable of handling green arrows that may or may not appear to them or to opposing traffic, and the implementation of advance walk signals for pedestrians varies across the city. Motorists are expected to pay attention.
Signal priority comes in various forms, some of which might not be described as transit-friendly:
- Green time extension: as a transit vehicle approaches an intersection, the green time can be extended to ensure it will not be held at the signal. This does not always produce the desired effect, notably at nearside stops where a bus or streetcar might use up its extra green time serving passengers and still be held when it is ready to depart.
- Left turning traffic priority: A familiar situation on routes with reserved lanes such as Spadina, St. Clair and The Queensway is that left turning traffic gets its own green arrow advance phase before through traffic, including transit, has a chance to move. Transit only goes first when there is provision for turns (primarily on Spadina) when a white bar indicates a transit-only phase.
- Crossing/merging traffic: At some locations, transit vehicles move across traffic and this is supported by a transit signal. However, the timing and speed of reaction of these signals can leave a lot to be desired. One glaring problem that may soon reappear is at the exit from Humber Loop to Lake Shore Boulevard, a location where streetcars have been held for an extended period awaiting their so-called priority.
There is no discussion in the report of the various Transit Signal Priority schemes and whether they should be modified.
The report includes a map showing the location of TSP implementations across the city, but there is no distinction between the type of priority actually implemented at various locations. The locations are primarily on streetcar lines, but bus corridors include Bathurst, Dufferin, Jane and Finch. Through the pandemic era, 52 locations were added and 38 more are to come in 2023. The report does not list where these might be.
Going forward, a notable concern lies on Eglinton Avenue East where the proposed TSP for Line 5 Crosstown is rumoured to be watered down from its original concept to something akin to what is now used on the streetcar routes with their own rights-of-way. Metrolinx testing has yet to reach the level of full service simulation, and we have seen nothing to indicate how the priority scheme actually implemented will benefit or harm service. This is not just a debate about “who goes first” but of whether the TSP scheme will add to operating costs by forcing a slower average speed than planned on the route.
The need for active intervention in traffic management with feet on the ground has been obvious for years. Many motorists will ignore signals and signage if they can get away with it. Some locations are so congested at times that only a person physically standing in the roadway will be effective, and even then only to minimize gridlock, not to eliminate delays. The situation on King Street has deteriorated over the years and this gets a passing mention:
“Most recently, with construction ongoing on parallel routes, there has been a rise in violations and traffic agents have been successful in ensuring that vehicular traffic obeys the particular regulations on King Street of not traversing multiple blocks, thus helping to ensure the efficient operation of the King streetcars.”
[Congestion Management Plan 2023-26 at p. 7]
This is very hard to believe based on day-to-day observation, not to mention actual tracking data which show decline, not improvement, in recent months.
Toronto Police Pilot to Support the Traffic Agent Program
Where they have been deployed, traffic agents have achieved considerable improvements in traffic flow. However:
Transportation Services is continuing to try to expand the traffic agent program but continues to face challenges with respect to retaining staff and the lengthy recruitment process.
[Congestion Management Plan 2023-26 at p. 8]
On an interim basis, the City will consider the use of Toronto Police Service officers at key locations. It is good to know the staffing problem will be covered, but this takes us right back to the high cost of TPS staffing and the question of where these officers will come from in a force stretched for resources.
Smart Signals and Intelligent Intersections
Among the technologies touted for improving road operations in recent years are “Smart Signals” and “Intelligent Intersections”. (I did not make these up. Alliteration appears to be a pre-requisite for technology marketing.) The difference between these is explained:
“While Smart Signals focus largely on the efficient and safe movement of vehicles, Intelligent Intersections refers to a set of technologies that will allow the intersections to be more efficient, improve the safety of pedestrians and cyclists, as well as form the backbone of a modern multi-modal data and analytics system.”
[Congestion Management Plan 2023-26 at p. 9]
To date, Smart Signals have been deployed on four corridors: Sheppard Avenue East, Kingston Road, The Queensway (East) and Lake Shore Boulevard West. Plans for 2024 include: Don Mills Road, Lawrence Avenue and Steeles Avenue West. There are plans to expand the project to offset effects of major transit projects such as the Ontario Line, but the report contains no specifics.
This technology consists of video-based machine vision counting devices that are able to monitor the number of pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles passing through downtown intersections to provide critical insights into the performance. The system is also able to provide real-time data to support regular optimization of the signals along the corridor, ensuring that transit vehicles travelled unimpeded.
[Congestion Management Plan 2023-26 at p. 9]
It is not clear how much of this will affect real-time signalling versus feeding stats for back end analytics and tweaking.
I have been tracking travel times on Don Mills, Lawrence and Steeles for some time as background for the RapidTO proposals, and will be interested to see what benefit, if any, Smart Signals bring to those routes.
On top of the two technologies discussed here, the City is also looking at services that might be on offer from various telecommunications companies for real time adjustment of signals and “the ability to prioritize cyclists, minimize delays for pedestrians, provide transit priority and move traffic more efficiently”.
Whatever technology is involved, it is clear that the only real point of control available is in the traffic signals. Physical road reconfiguration and optimization takes time, and indeed “today’s” optimization might not work for “tomorrow’s” conditions.
The idea that somewhere there is spare capacity if only we could exploit it will keep technology lobbyists busy, but only prolong the pretense that there is room for everybody on our streets.
Establish a Dedicated Event Management Planning Team
Toronto has a few stadiums (or stadia for the purists) here and there, plus other events/venues that generate a lot of traffic or interfere with the normal operation of streets and transit. One might expect that such a city would have a team for dealing with these, or even with the power to say “no” on some occasions.
Well, yes, Toronto actually created a dedicated team for this in July 2023 called TEMP for Traffic Event Management Planning:
TEMP will collaborate with various partners and stakeholders such as Transportation Services, Economic Development & Culture, Toronto Emergency Management, Engineering & Construction Services, Toronto Police Services, Toronto Parking Authority, TTC, Metrolinx GO and event organizers to improve traffic management planning efforts around major events and in coordination with construction work. TEMP will also focus on traffic management strategies to help mitigate traffic congestion, utilise tools to monitor the events and review lessons learned for application to the same or similar future events.
[Congestion Management Plan 2023-26 at p. 7]
Their initial focus will be on Exhibition Place and the Rogers/Air Canada Centre area, but they are looking at future really big events like the World Cup and Taylor Swift’s concert series.
An obvious flaw here is the term “traffic management planning”. Toronto has reached a point where “traffic” should not be the primary way, by a wide margin, in how attendees travel to and from these events. Whether transit services will respond, and traffic management will include restriction of road access for use by transit, remains to be seen.
Automated Congestion Monitoring and Enforcement
No, gentle readers, this is not the TSP equivalent of red light cameras. Much as we badly need ongoing, effective monitoring of King Street scofflaws and motorists who blow past open streetcar doors, this topic addresses another problem.
To no big surprise, everyone who blocks the road does not apply for a permit, or exceeds the terms of what they actually paid for. There is also a chronic problem with illegal parking.
How much of this will actually be addressed by Transportation Services (who can only monitor areas under their jurisdiction) remains to be seen. As for illegal parking, Toronto has long needed an aggressive towing policy that removes obstructing vehicles rather than just ticketing them.
Congestion Metrics
Finally, the City has developed a Travel Time Index [see the report at p. 11] tracking congestion levels since pre-pandemic times. The report observes:
The City’s TTI has held relatively constant over the past few months at a level slightly below pre-pandemic conditions during morning and afternoon peak periods. The conditions observed in 2023 are higher than those observed during the same months in 2021 and 2022, fluctuating around 1.65 to 1.75 over that time.
[Congestion Management Plan 2023-26 at p. 10]
The scale is set so that a value of “1.00” corresponds to free flowing traffic.
The chart in the report shows overall values for the weekday PM peak hour since February 2020. Regular readers will know that I often write about the importance of detailed rather than summary reporting. A useful addition to the City’s online data repertoire would be to break down this information by location to show where the real problems lie, and how they have developed over time. This would also allow demonstration of the effects of any changes at the local level rather than having them swamped in city-wide averages.
Steve Munro 
The City makes information available about “road restrictions” on its Road Restrictions website and through the Construction Hub websites.
The problem is that the information on the Road Restrictions page is VERY incomplete though the City has plans to replace it in spring 2024 with a much improved version and the Construction Hubs offer little or no information and some offer FAR less than the map. For example, the Lake Shore East Hub’s website lists only
This despite the partial closure of Lower Sherbourne and Yonge Streets just north of Lake Shore and the work on Lake Shore East itself and, yes, the TTC project at King station is really not even in “Lake Shore East” area!
Accurate information about congestion can help people take alternate routes, the City needs to improve what it provides, soon!
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Though not directly ‘congestion related’ whatever happened with the TTC and city pan to add cameras to streetcars so those who block streetcar lanes or drive past open streetcar doors can be caught and fined? The City asked the Province to amend the law and this was done in the Moving Ontarians More Safely Act (2021). A blocked streetcar blocks everyone …..
Steve: The idea is sitting at the TTC. Funding is likely the problem, plus political interest or the lack of it in the former administration.
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There are too many bike lanes, reducing traffic to one lane (or less at left turns) all over the city, including Yonge Street. Absolutely ridiculous
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Just a show. There is no regard at the Political level and therefore staff level to promote vehicular flow. Everything done is to impede traffic flow. Posting a sign stating expect delays is the City construction management strategy.
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Depends upon whether the politicians and bureaucrats will continue to prioritize the single-occupant automobile ahead of the standard buses holding approximately 51 people while articulated buses holding 77, or the 130 on board a single streetcar.
Will we ever see streetcar moving to farside platforms on Spadina before the single-occupant autos turning left? Will we see traffic signals to allow buses and streetcars to enter the roadway from the subway stations? Or will we continue to see bunching because we can’t permission to transit.
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Last Friday, about 6:30 pm, while waiting for an eastbound King streetcar, at Yonge Street, I watched over 12 cars in a row ignore the traffic signs telling them to turn right, and cross the Yonge Street intersection.
I’d really like to see all the intersections, between Bathurst and Jarvis, equipped with red-light cameras, and see every one of those rogue cars get a ticket, so they didn’t make ignoring the signs a habit.
In recent years Lower Jarvis and, to a lesser extent, Lower Sherbourne, are so heavily congested, they resemble a parking lot. This does not happen just at the height of rush hour, but for hours before and after. A side effect is over-agressive drivers, who break the traffic safety act, and enter the intersection, even though it is not clear. They cross their fingers, on the wish that the intersection will clear, before the light turns red.
However, these over-agressive drivers routinely end up sitting in the intersection, when their light turns red, blocking eastbound traffic, on The Esplanade, Front Street, and – deadly for streetcar traffic on King – these overly aggressive drivers block eastbound traffic on King, too.
So, we need red-light cameras monitoring southbound traffic on Jarvis/Lower Jarvis and Sherbourne/Lower Sherbourne.
During weekday rush hours you can see three, count’em three cops directing traffic at the intersection of Lower Jarvis, Lakeshore Boulevard, where there is an on-ramp to the Westbound Gardiner Expressway.
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I’d like to ask C. Cooney what they think about Toronto introducing something like London’s Congestion Tax
As I recall, people who have to drive in London England’s central core have a transponder in their car, similar to the 407 transponder. The charge, just for driving around, was substantial.
I used to laugh, when Rob Ford talked about “the war against the car”.
However, in the last couple of years, when half a kilometer of The Esplanade was turned into a one-way street, and 100 meters or so was made buses-only, I wondered if he had seen plans like this 12 years ago.
Would car-centric people, in the “war against the car”, prefer a congestion charge, to the new bike lanes, and the streets newly made one-way?
To what extent are the opening of new bike-lanes a passive-aggressive measure meant to drive automobile drivers out of downtown?
Personally, since I don’t drive anymore, I wouldn’t mind BOTH a congestion tax transponders AND more bike lanes.
Steve: Another use I can see for transponders is to identify “taxis” that are allowed to drive through King Street during their exception period. No transponder? You get a hefty fine. We seem to be able to do this sort of thing for the 407, why not on King?
That said, there are other parts of the city with congestion problems, not just the core, and I’m not sure that a downtown congestion charge is going to make a huge difference in the wider scheme of things.
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Having been to a few cycling route consultations, if anything, in general the City goes quite far to avoid inconveniencing automobile drivers while building new bike lanes.
For me, I wouldn’t say reducing personal-vehicle traffic is a _goal_ of building bike lanes, but certainly it is a pleasant side effect.
The example of The Esplanade is illuminating. This is a minor street through a dense residential neighbourhood, abutting a park and a school. The fact that it’s been used as a rat-run by non-local drivers in the past doesn’t change that it is in fact the perfect place to begin to reduce automobile traffic. The amount of people _in the neighbourhood_ who are upset about cars not being allowed to drive there quite as much is likely relatively low. I imagine a bunch of people living around Fort York Boulevard are feeling a little envious. (It doesn’t hurt that Esplanade does tie into the cycling network pretty well – connecting Sherbourne, Cherry, River, and the Don trail.)
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There might be too many bike lanes, but they don’t take up much space, and at least serve people moving around the city and getting places.
And it seems to me that many bike lanes were created by removing on-street parking spots, rather than lanes that were actually used for moving traffic. I know this was the case for much of Bloor, and also Dundas and College IIRC.
On the flip-side, there are certainly still too many on-street parking spots, and they only serve people looking to leave their car on the road (taking a lane of traffic out of circulation in the process) while they do other things.
I would love to see the City tackle on-street parking, and why we allow so much of it, and price it so cheaply. If road space is at a premium, doesn’t it make sense to prioritize people who actually want to use it to go places (no matter what the vehicle type)? Constant traffic jams in areas with ample on-street parking seems like a “market failure” (“non-optimal allocation of resources” as economists would say)
But I’m not confident that anyone at City Hall really wants to take this on.
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It’s too bad that the Transit Signal Priority map doesn’t identify which intersections actually have TSP “turned on”.
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In addition to longer term ‘solutions’, Congestion Management needs to be applied to TEMPORARY problems and today I was on King @ Church and there was a huge line of streetcars on King and another on Church. I doubt I have ever seen so many at the one time since I went to an open house at the Leslie Barns! King is blocked to streetcars in the George/Frederick blocks due to some sewer problem and the notices that are (finally) at the stops say it will last until 29th. This means that 503, 501 and 504 cars are being routed up Church. The reduction in lanes on King is, as one might expect, NOT showing on the Road Restrictions map and nobody appears to have made any effort to temporarily stop parking on King west of Church and on Church from King to Queen. If the curb lanes were not blocked, it MIGHT allow cars to pass the (many) stalled streetcars.
Steve: This is a perfect example of my gripe that the major problems caused by this type of event are completely off the radar of “congestion management” planning. Oh we will tweak a signal here or there, weeks after the change was needed, but actively changing the street space allocations is asking far too much.
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The problem with Church is the same one with diversions on Parliament, that is between Queen and King.
The majority of green time is given to Richmond, Adelaide, and Queen and there is no synchronization of signals to clear the blocks for the surprise 30m streetcars which normally aren’t there.
The large volume of King cars needing to make an unprotected left turn at Richmond only kicks in additional chaos, and sometimes the switch from southbound Church to westbound King doesn’t work.
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Congestion fees (tolls) should re-named as a “Voluntary Tax”. Don’t want to pay it, take transit! Too “important” to take transit? Pay the Voluntary Tax!
When the Mayor of London England introduced tolls for driving anywhere in downtown people said it was the end for him! It was in fact the opposite. His popularity guaranteed reelection. The Mayor did one other thing at the same time as he introduced tax he increased bus service by 30%! TTC could not increase service by 3%!
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I live downtown. I don’t think that many people who live in the city drive there. Instead, we’ve got 905ers clogging up the roads, including blocking cross traffic as they stream to get on Gardiner in the afternoon. Tolls on DVP and Gardiner and central city congestion charges would likely do a lot to improve transit performance for the surface routes in the central city. Toronto has kowtowed to suburbanite drivers for far too long. How we’d weed out those crossing Steeles, I don’t know.
Steve: A moat, possibly with a dragon or two?
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From Toronto Public Library:
From BlogTO:
Maybe time for a return of toll roads using transponders.
Steve: Transponders are efficient, but they miss the chance for tourist potential with little log cabins holding resident toll collectors. There’s a Monty Python skit in there somewhere.
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As I am writing this comment (3:30pm afternoon peak), there are four short turned 501D’s sitting in Distillery loop because of the congestion on Church. There is not single 501D streetcar downtown.
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The biggest impediment to improving the flow of vehicles (including buses and streetcars) is Vision Zero. Under the guise of reducing pedestrian fatalities, the city is intentionally slowing down the speed of traffic – it’s a feature, not a bug.
If they were actually serious about improving surface transit travel times they would reverse many of the “improvements” made in the name of safety. I’m looking specifically at the advanced pedestrian signals when no pedestrians are present, elimination of advance green and separate turn phases, use of street parking as a calming measure, removal of turning lanes, etc.
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It doesn’t seem to be a problem today. But that is only because they’ve actually stopped sending 501s downtown. That’s how messed up the street is.
I boarded a 503 earlier today and it took about 35 minutes to get from Peter to Queen and another 30 minutes to get to Kingston Road.
Every intersection along Church is a delay. No protected turn from King to Church. Adelaide, Richmond, and Queen sponge all the green time and backup traffic in the short blocks. Condo construction blocking half the lanes on the street. No protected turn from Church to Richmond. Autos creeping up the right lane at Queen and blocking right turns and also being unable to advance through the intersection because westbound streetcars do not receive protected turns and end up blocking northbound traffic when they bully through the trailing end of the green.
Did I mention the southbound switch at King doesn’t work and needs to be manually flipped each time a 501/503/504 goes through?
Steve: This is a situation where the City and TTC should have thrown every resource at making true transit priority, but they sat on their collective hands. Disgraceful.
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Congestion can be dramatically reduced by burying or elevating streetcar lines. Toronto should reconsider the need for streetcars post-OL. Once the Ontario Line opens, we will no longer need east-west streetcars Downtown. Once the Eglinton LRT opens, we will no longer need streetcars on St Clair. The two north-south streetcar lines can be buried or elevated.
Steve: This is part of the mythology advanced by subway advocates. The OL will not replace the need for the east-west streetcar lines because it serves a different demand pattern than much of their mileage. Traffic on St. Clair will not divert north to Eglinton. As for elevating or burying Spadina and Bathurst, that’s a very high-cost “solution” to the problem as you present it.
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Tell me you’re a suburbanite without saying you’re a suburbanite.
Under Tory, the Zero Vision approach to pedestrian safety–blame the pedestrian–has done nothing to improve safety. Even when a speeding car flipped up onto a sidewalk and killed an innocent pedestrians, the cops said “Remember to be vigilant at all times.” What we need is stricter enforcement of traffic laws, more severe penalties and redesigns of roads to slow down cars.
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This is only my unscientific view, and it will run against the grain on this forum for sure, but here goes…
There is a *marked* improvement on my commute when the “street patios” are gone. No, I’m not petitioning to cancel the PatioTO program, because I understand the benefit it brings. But whether I drive or take TTC, I think – unscientifically – that I get to work almost *twice as fast* when there’s the extra lane. For reference, I live in the beaches, and work by Riverside…so it’s just a straight shot down Queen. And it’s not just that there’s double the road capacity…it’s that cars can navigate around other cars that are turning. With the single lane, a left turn brings everything – including streetcars – to a halt. With two lanes, traffic continues to flow. The difference is, again, incredible.
This year is tough because the Queen east streetcar service has changed more times than I can count. But I’d bet money if Steve did a comparison between travel times during Patio TO, and in late fall / early spring (when there’s no snow, and no patios), he’d find that the streetcars move markedly faster as well.
So, while I’m going to take a lot of flak for this, I think preserving two lanes of traffic wherever cars are using that street is worth doing during peak hours, even for transit’s sake. Note that that doesn’t mean we can’t have transit priority on King, or bike lanes on Richmond and Adelaide, and I actually think on street parking during *non* peak hours is very valuable…not everyone can, or wants, to bike or transit to where they need to go…and businesses and residences need people to be able to *arrive* there, not just drive past. Unless we excavate the entire city for parkades, on street parking is a reality that I’m also completely ok with.
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The short answer is: No! Private vehicle congestion across a big, healthy city cannot be reduced. It can be managed in a few problem spots (roughly a per-intersection scale), and it can be prevented from impacting other means of transportation.
Two key phrases explain it: Induced demand – if you make driving easier, more people will drive. Reuben Smeed’s 9 mph rule – rule of thumb that traffic in central London always moves at 9 mph (15 km/h). If you make driving easier and “faster”, more people will drive, using up the newly created road capacity and not actually moving any faster. If you make driving less easy, speeds still remain the same, because some people give up driving there.
The only real way to reduce private vehicle congestion in Toronto is to remove destinations in Toronto that people drive to. It happened during the first COVID lockdowns. And it could happen in a very severe economic or social crash. But that’s about it.
That’s why all congestion management needs to be about reducing the impact of congestion on other transport – by removing private vehicles from transit routes, emergency routes, active transportation routes, and from neighbourhoods. If you’re not doing that, you’re not actually doing anything to address “congestion”.
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And for all the people who think Vision Zero measures, streetcars, transit priority, or patios are the cause of congestion – what’s your explanation for the traffic hellhole that are streets around Yorkdale Mall?
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I was able to depute at City Wall about some of this: and yes, what are the roots of congestion as it seems to be intended within City Wall? I’d dug up a copy of a quote from Mr. Gardiner himself c. 1958 in the TTC’s Coupler of:
And yes, we need to be starting in on addressing the congestion charge and car-free options for the old core, but that requires improved transit, which is Not! the Ontario Line for a few good reasons, though we do need transit investment, including planning by a more neutral group beyond Cabinet and the Dougtator, but also a plan that goes west of the pinch point at the base of High Park so further transit options to the Gardiner/Lakeshore exist, as it seems that much of the car problem in the old core is from the west, and it’s laws of physics about how much space a car takes up, worse when it’s an SOV, and it’s moving, as a moving car consumes more public resource of costly road/space than when parked.
Carservatism and carsaurvatism are well entrenched in Caronto though at least there’s a bit more hope with this IEC, but it’s still faint, and not making reference to the massive CO2 hit of the forest fires to the climate crisis. But at least there’s awareness of climate issues there; at Queen’s Park it’s far more ‘pyrotization’ than better climate policy.
And thanks Steve and most commenters… a help, again.
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Jarek’s “streets around Yorkdale Mall” reminds me of a complaint that Steve has made several times regarding GO Trains, and their success as a magnet for cars around any in-town GO railway station.
The jams in Aurora rival anything Toronto can produce, and of course, completely defeat the original purpose of GO. Worse, for people north east of Aurora there is an easier, totally uncrowded alternative; the Bloomington/404 Terminal of the Richmond Hill line.
I’ve got news for you rubes stuck in Aurora traffic; both lines GO to the same station!
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Oh oh! Just as the city was “thinking” of demolishing the Gardiner Expressway, there is now “talk” about “uploading” the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway. From the City of Toronto to the Province of Ontario. Also reversing the “downloading” of the Queen Elizabeth Way from the 427 to the Humber River, done by Doug’s mentor and master former Premier Mike Harris in 1997.
The downloading was done by Mike Harris to reduce expenses accruing when the province maintained that section of the QEW. Unfortunately, mostly 905ers were the motorists driving to and from outside of Toronto and using both Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway.
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I was thinking it might be interesting for you to do a comparison of service between Toronto and a European route of similar capacity etc. so that people can see the difference in the charts with regard to end point management and on time etc.
I know it’s not necessarily apples to apples…but it might be interesting – especially if they have different technologies in place – to see some of the impacts.
Steve: The problem is to get comparable tracking data from a comparator system.
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They have covered up the advance turn signals they installed earlier this year to help with the 501/505 diversions at Broadview. The powers that be don’t seem to want them used on the regular.
Steve: Yes, I noticed that. So much for being actively pro transit.
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